Thoughts on the specific wording of the prophecy

[dananotdayna]

No: HPFGUIDX 171492

Tigerpatronus had an idea in Message #171351 that Harry might jump into the bell jar at the DOM and regress to pre-scar-baby-Harry and somehow start all over. While I thought this a pretty wacky idea as I was reading it, it made me wonder:

What if Voldemort fell into the bell jar and regressed to tiny helpless baby Tom Riddle? Would Harry destroy this baby? Or would he then finally be able to apply his unique power?

Initially I thought "I doubt it." Even being magically regressed to
infancy wouldn't change the facts that TMR had been (ill) conceived with a "Love" Potion that robbed TR Sr. of his free will and that Merope's genetic contribution came from the crazy end of the gene pool. That baby didn't ever have nature or nurture on his side.  It seemed ridiculous to think that Harry allowing baby Voldy to live and raise him with love would be the answer. Surely a person with such origins is destined to turn out badly...

But then I again I was confronted with the fact JKR doesn't seem to have a clear stance on the nature/nurture question. On the one hand, she obviously indicates that Pureblood supremacist thinking is rubbish. On the other hand, she shows that Harry could emerge from an emotionally abusive childhood with innate decency that hadn't been extinguished.  There are innumerable examples of her playing both sides of this fence.

Then I remembered posts where Mike and Bart had this exchange of
thoughts:

>Message #170935

> > Mike, who also wants to know why JKR felt it necessary to
> > introduce time travel and hopes that she really needed it at the
> > same time hopes he won't see it again.

> Bart:
> I suspect (hope?) she introduced time travel to give it sufficient
> limitations that it could only be used in the most limited of
> circumstances (that you can't change the past, but you CAN change
> the future).

  ***

Is it possible that even though the horror and terror of Voldemort
can't be undone, that there would be a way to give TM Riddle's
spirit a "do over"?

I wouldn't even call this thought about the bell jar a theory or a
prediction, but I am keenly interested in the fact that JKR has said
that the very specific wording of the prophecy has everything to do with the resolution of the story. I have, until now, been utterly unable to imagine a plausible scenario in which Harry can defeat Voldemort with Love. He would have to love Voldemort (Lily's sacrificial love for Harry didn't defeat him, it only protected Harry). And a 17-year-old is too flawed, too human, to be able to love and forgive something that is thoroughly evil and inhuman...

The prophecy states that One approaches with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord. Vanquish means to defeat, conquer, subdue, overcome or
suppress. None of these necessarily means kill. The Dark Lord is what
Tom Riddle became after his "horcruxery" (great word, art/bml07646) -
an increasingly inhuman evil entity, a soul that has been maimed by
self-inflicted unhealing wounds. If the Dark Lord can be overcome
without being killed, won't Love be the thing to accomplish that?  If
Harry destroys the remaining Horcruxes, the wounds will heal as those
soul fragments are released. And what will remain is a soul with scars,but re-humanized. If this person is once again human enough to die,could Harry see him as human enough to live? And to change (especially now that the body this damaged soul is housed in has Harry's blood and innate goodness flowing through it)?  Harry's mentor was certainly all about second chances.

Voldemort will be vanquished, but I don't think Harry will kill him. The truest, purest love forgives. And only that kind of love would be strong enough to counteract this evil. Something could happen to transform Voldemort into a being that Harry can view with compassion and that Harry can forgive for the destruction and pain it/he had wrought. The baby-in-the-bell-jar idea is out there, surely a long shot, but at least now I can envision something that reconciles Harry's (current) inability to love his enemies with the wording of the prophecy... the recurring motif of the magical manipulation of time may or may not have anything to do with it - but - Tigerpatronus' idea was really great food for thought.

Any other thoughts about the wording of the prophecy and how it will
play out in the end? I can't even wrap my brain around the confusion
of "
either must die at the hand of the other for neither can live
while the other survives
"  Who?  Huh?  An hour of searching and
reading  the posts on this stuff has confounded me.


~Dana, who has only ever lurked because she is so very very wordy...